


Survivors

by queen_scribbles



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Alternate view, Ciphers are scary, Gen, Points of View
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 08:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21268250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: Not everyone sees Emiri's sweet side





	Survivors

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill 101: Recount. This wound up less “ridiculous” and more “alternate view of one of my muses”, but it was still fun to write, so yay?

_Several collected accounts of the “Blue Witch”, recorded by scholars in a variety of locations around the Deadfire, for interested parties._

~~~

“You dunno the Blue Witch? Then thank your lucky stars, mate, an’ steer clear a’ th’ slave trade t’ keep it that way. She’s what scared me straight, y’know. Crookspur was a good gig, lotsa money, no rules ‘side respect th’ captain, the whole ocean was our huntin’ ground. Then one day we see this little ship, pretty thing, looked like easy pickin’s. She was flying colors we didn’t recognize; green an’ yella wit’ an eye and a castle, and her stern named her _Mercy_.

“*snort* Mercy’s the farthest thing from what we found, I’ll tell ya that right off. They was firin’ at us ‘fore we were even close, got our Cap’n right pissed. She decided against cripplin’ them first, drove us in close t’ take the ship. Ondra as my witness the woman was a fool. Usher keep her, but it was the biggest mistake of her life. My wildest nightmares never prepared me to lay eyes on kith like this. If y’ can even call ‘em all kith.

“Th’ whole damn crew was armed to their blazin’ teeth, which we’re used to. A sailor with a sword or wizard spitting their spell ain’t enough t’ make our blood run cold. They’re all the same once y’ clap irons on ‘em and break ‘em and stand ‘em on a block for the highest bidder.

“But you know what we ain’t used to?” He thumps his drink emphatically against the table. “Women with feathers and burnin’ swords who fight like Magran Herself. Or a copperfuckin’ _shark_ with_ legs_ that was ten feet all if it was an inch. Ondra as my witness, boys, call me crazy, but it was standin’ in front of me surely as you are now. But none of ‘em compared to the blue witch. I ain’t never seen a thing like her before, and I pray to all the_ gods_ I never do again. Almost as tall as her walkin’ shark--musta been some kinda thrall, with how well it followed her biddin’--eyes of blue fire, strange glowin’ tattoos all over, no armor. She did nothin’ but look at us and I felt her screamin’ in my damned head, just pure wordless rage that made me wanna jump the blazin’ rail. Mighta gone better for me if I had; Cap’n weren’t in any shape to punish by then.

“Fools we were, we thought we could take ‘em. Thought they’d fetch a price’t’ make up our losses. The feathered warrior, the shark outta water, the blue witch. The crewmates I didn’t see fall to blade, bullets, or spells threw themselves off the ship like their minds weren’t their own t’ drown or be crushed against one a’ the ships. Only reason I’m alive is they thought I weren’t. See these burns, my whole damned chest? Her shark’s doin’. Aye, y’heard me. The fucker can walk, ain’t a surprise it has spells, too. Took out my mate Dren with a rock spike almost big as his head, then got me with fire that struck from the sky. Dunno why I ain’t dead, musta fell in th’ water when I blacked out, woke up on one of the islands, bein’ tended by the locals. They were jabberin’ ‘bout someone they called ‘Watcher’ wipin’ out the nearby slaver presence, so’s I figured best not tell ‘em what I was. Wasn’t plannin’ to do it no more anyway. Scrambled as my head was, I could still hear the blue witch’s screamin’ rage in the back of it. Way she fought, it was clear wipin’ us out was personal for her, an’ if slavin’ might mean runnin’ afoul of _her_ again, with her shark and other creatures followin’ her I wanted no blazin’ part of it no more. I got lucky once, no need to push my fortunes like that. I’d sooner live landlocked in a hovel than worry_ she_ was after me.”

~overheard in the Wild Mare, attributed to Honest Joel, storyteller and merchant

~~~

“I was there when the blue witch hit our fortress out near Ori o Koiki. The kith following her weren’t nothin’ special; elves and folk, though they did their share layin’ waste to our holdin’s, but that blue-skinned witch... Ah, she was a special kinda terrifying. You’ve heard the stories, yeah? Burnin’ eyes, tattoos what glow, shreds yer mind if ya meet her gaze? All true. But don’t think witch tricks are all there is to her, no. Y’see here the crooked set of me jaw? That’d be her doing. Froze me with a look, cracked me ‘cross the face with her hammer, knocked me clean off the fortress ramparts. Only lived ‘cause I landed atop a pair of mates cheated me at cards the night b’fore, an’ serves ‘em right. Better their necks than mine. I’ll tell you one thing for sure an’ simple, boys: you ever see a woman with skin like sapphire and eyes that could burn right through a man, or glimpse a ship called _Mercy_, you pray to all the gods who ever helped you and you beg your captain on bended knee if you hafta to steer well clear of her, b’cause I swear by my good eye it’s the only way you’ll see another sunrise. The blue witch don’t spare our kind. Not on purpose.”

~”Half-face” Morrisey, Harbormaster of Port Maje

~~~

“She ain’t no witch by my reckoning. No, she’s some poor sod what perished in the trade and come back as a ghost for her revenge. It’s what I’d do. And her crew must be more a’ the same. Where else d’you find an elf with two voices or a woman part bird or a shark with fuckin’ legs? They’re nightmares from the Beyond itself--if they exist at all.”

~Captain Pegi of the independent slaving vessel_ Tiama_, overheard with her crew while stopped to resupply. She was found three days later by a passing merchant ship, adrift, alone, and barely alive, muttering about the vengeance of the dead.

~~~

[_the next several pages are heavily damaged by water, slick with fungus or greenish mold, and only pieces of the accounts they contain are still legible. The tone is the same, however--the blue witch and her fantastical, impossible collection of followers devastating slaver ships and outposts, leaving no survivors save the ones lucky enough to hide or smart enough to play dead. At the very end, however, one account remains mostly undamaged._]

~~~

“The Blue With? Ekera, I’ve seen her. She was the answer to nigh on three years begging the gods would save me from those Crookspur bastards. They worked m’ brother to death, y’know. Woulda like as not done the same to me if their dreaded Blue Witch hadn’t shown up an’ killed ‘em all. Magran’s eyes, but she was a sight to watch. Washed through like the damned tide, her and her friends, didn’t leave a one of ‘em standin’. Some of her friends had flashier spells; fire and lightnin’ and such, but she just had t’ look at kith and they’d fall to their knees or turn tail to run. Those ones didn’t get far, she saw to that.

“[a paragraph is illegible, before] Once she’d introduced ‘em all to the Usher, she took care of us. Freed every man, woman, and child from the chains that held us, from our cells. Locks she couldn’t find keys to got broke open.

“She may’ve been a witch to slavers and the like, but to us she was more savior than anything. And one look at her wrists’ll tell ya why on both counts. I hope every slaver in the damn Deadfire shits themselves at the thought of her, but there are many kith, like me, have lives back thanks to the ‘blue witch’ who freed us and fed us and took us to safety. May her legend live on.”

~Jesse, sailor on the _Recurrent_

**Author's Note:**

> The original intention was to see how unbelievably I could have the poor, poor slavers Emiri went up against describe her and her friends, but it turned into just them being terrified out of their damn minds. Which... is fair. They should be terrified of her. She would be very pleased. (And she would laugh, very hard, at that last account; someone viewing her as deliverance sent by the gods when they never answered her prayers for rescue).


End file.
